


Healing Wounds

by Bellovesus



Category: The Gifted (TV 2017)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-08 12:32:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17386541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellovesus/pseuds/Bellovesus
Summary: In the months following the downfall of the Inner Circle and the aversion of the Mutant insurrection,former members of the Inner Circle adjust to their circumstances.





	1. Chapter 1

The Mutant Underground had thrived as an organisation in the wake of the Inner Circle's demise. With the offshore accounts and infrastructure of the latter was now used in the service of sheltering mutant fugitives and refugees.

John Proudstar and Evangeline Whedon had moved their cell to Philadelphia to avoid the government-sanctioned lock down of Washington DC. And as such, a large exodus of DC residents with the X-gene had quit the capital. Housing was arranged for them, along with carefully-crafted ID's. The dream of an independent mutant homeland was a forlorn dream for mutant kind. The Underground continued to doggedly pursue the old X-Men ambition of living in accord with Humanity.

The alarm clock next to Andrew Strucker's bed sounded when it turned to 6:00 AM. The young mutant boy sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. He sighed as he looked about his tiny, poorly-furnished bedroom. He scratched his closely-shaved head, the old bleach blond strands of his days in the Inner Circle had been cut off the previous week. He switched off the alarm before heading to the shower down the hallway from his bedroom. Within ten minutes, Andy was cooking his breakfast. 

He was joined in the kitchen by his father, Reed. He was going to take Andy to the Underground's warehouse to forge travel documents, as he had done for the past month. Andy had accepted the job alongside his father to pay for his college tuition, as well as so Reed might keep and eye on his son. In case that Andy may succumb to his bouts of melancholy, which he had fallen  
into since the events of the Inner Circle's demise several months earlier.

"So..." Reed had begun conversing with his son. "Where are you going after your classes?"

Andy shrugged as he was buttering his toast. "Probably, I'll just head home."

Reed sighed at his son's diffidence. "You know," the father began, thinking of what to say without broaching the Inner Circle, "you can go and meet people. Not just hang about in your room."

Andy flicked his eyes at his father. "You don't want me to do homework?"

Reed shook his head. "Not what I meant, son. Just, you know, since we got you back you haven't gone out and made  
any new friends."

"I'm just trying to make up for lost time with school." Andy insisted. 

But Reed wasn't buying his son's excuse. "Andy, it's just not good for you to be cooped in your room half the day.You need to have a social life. When was the last time you spoke to Lorna?"

Andy sighed. "Can we not, please?" He sat down to eat his breakfast. "I don't want to be talking about this all day with you."

Reed shrugged. "Okay!"

Later Reed drove to work with Andy beside him. He then decided to continue the conversation. "So...your mother and I are going to meet up with John, Clarice, Marcos and Lorna at the main office. Lauren's coming along, and we hoped that you would too."

Andy looked at him. "Okay, then I'm not coming."

"Please Andy," Reed insisted. "I already told them you'd be here."

Andy glared at his father. "What?!?" The boy gasped. "So why are you asking me?"

"Because I needed you to say yes to it." Reed explained.

"You want me to WANT to go there?!"

"Well...yeah, honestly." Reed confessed awkwardly.

"Well then, I DON'T want to go!"

Reed shook his head. "You can't say I didn't give you a choice: You ARE going." He declared firmly. Not letting  
Andy off the hook.

Andy sighed in resignation. 

They arrived at the MU's warehouse. Reed unlocked the shutters and was followed in by his son. Reed left Andy to task while he made a long phone call to MU headquarters. He had taught Andy well how to craft flawless passports for mutant refugees, so very little supervision was required from his father at this point. Andy would be at the workshop for three hours before studying at the Underground's own technical college to complete his higher education.

Reed watched Andy across the room from his desk. He was satisfied that Andy was actively keeping his distractions at bay and throwing himself into his work and schooling. A year's worth of schooling had been caught up in less than two months. Reed knew that Andy, like his sister Lauren, was very bright. But before the children were outed as mutants in Atlanta, his son had been under-achieving during his first year in senior high school. His long hours at the law firm had made it difficult for him to mentor his younger child to keep him focused. The upheavel in their lives from the experience of being fugitives, the pain they suffered, had deeply affected Andy and compelled him to join the Inner Circle. They had manipulated Andy and conscripted him into performing terrible acts, slowly stripping the boy's humanity away. But Reed, Caitlin and Lauren would not give up on him. The revelation of Reeva Payge's deceptions; the truth about Andy's girlfriend Rebecca Hoover, everything, had convinced Andy to turn against Reeva and the Inner Circle. But the damage was done, and Andy, filled with remorse, had tried to kill himself. His family had stopped him in time and brought him home. Now he lived as a semi-recluse with his parents and sister, and not concerning himself with developing a social life or reconnecting with those other mutants who had abandoned the Inner Circle, particularly Lorna Dane who he had been close to. Reed wanted Andy to forgive himself and heal his conscience. 

Reed contacted John Proudstar, telling the Apache mutant he would meet with him and the others later that day.

After mid-day Andy went to the MU Technical College. He would have a test last thing in the day before the final bell. When he left the facility, his sister Lauren met with him near the car park,

"Hey," Lauren greeted her little brother. "Mom wanted me to take you to the main office."

Andy sighed. "Did you think I'd bail?"

Lauren shrugged. "Can you blame us? You've basically been a hermit for months. Time you left your shell behind for good!"

Andy followed his sister to her car. They sat in silence for a while before Lauren said something to end the uncomfortable silence.

"So..um..Mom mentioned that they're setting up a clinic in LA. They need experienced nurses and support staff from around the country. They asked for Mom to work there for them."

Andy was nonplussed by the news, but engaged as best he could. "Did she except the job?"

"She said she was going to discuss it with Dad first." Lauren turned to see Andy gazing listlessly out the window. "D'you mind that we might be leaving our friends?"

"I guess they'll miss you," Andy told her.

Lauren shook her head sadly. "Come on, they're your friends, too."

"Is that what they say?"

"They've been asking about you for weeks. Lorna says you haven't been returning her calls. She thinks you hate her or something."

Andy glanced at his sister. "I don't! I...I just thought she'd want to put the Inner Circle behind her. Be with Marcos and and their kid."

"She's really dying to meet you, Andy. You were both very close."

Andy exhaled as he leaned the back of his head hard against the headrest. "What does she want?" The boy asked his sister bitterly. "For me to make social calls and reminisce how we broke out all those psychos out of prison? The people we let die... about HER?!?" Andy meant his dead girlfriend Rebecca Hoover; an emotionally-disturbed, homocidal young mutant whom gruesomely killed thirty-seven people at the Creed Financial bank. 

Andy had been in some denial about Rebecca's mental state, believing that it was due to torture she endured from the Linwood Mental Hospital. It was Lorna who, after reconciling with Marcos, came clean with Andy that Rebecca had been incarcerated precisely because she was homocidal. And the revelation that Reeva and the Frosts knew about this, and the sort of mutant criminal mass-murderers they had recruited within the Inner Circle, caused Andy to rethink everything he had done in its service and who he had hurt in its pursuit. Finding out about Rebecca's psychopathy, after defending her to everyone around him, was a very bitter pill to swallow for Andy. He had never really known Rebecca as well as he thought. Worse thing was that he STILL had feelings for her. But he could not speak of it to anyone. Not with Lorna, Lauren or his parents.

Lauren drove her car the rest of the trip in silence before arriving to the parking lot behind the MU's secret headquarters in Philadelphia. The building was officially the main office for Clinical Supply Services, a nationwide medical supplies company for hospitals and clinics and a business front for the Mutant Underground's operations.

Lauren and Andy left the car and headed to the main entrance. 

"It'll be fine," she assured her younger brother. "Just don't look nervous."

"No promises," Andy muttered back. They went in to meet the old crew.


	2. Chapter 2

Lauren and Andy walked through the foyer of the MU/CSS head office building. The siblings spotted and approached their parents, who was speaking with mutant civil rights lawyer and head of the Underground, Evangeline Whedon.

"Oh good, you're here." Caitlin's face brightened at the sight of her children. Evangeline smiled a greeting. "Lauren, Andrew! Good to see you again."

Lauren smiled politely in response, while Andy managed a stiff nod. Something which the mutant lawyer picked up on. "I trust you've adapted to your lives here in Philly?"

"We're fine," Lauren replied for both of them. Andy remained as aloof and distant as ever. He only met Whedon once a couple of months earlier. Her formal manner courteousness plainly concealed a calculating nature which made Andy instinctively distrust the lawyer; she reminded him too much of Reeva Payge, who had used him for terrible ends. Just because Whedon was on the opposite team, that did not make her anymore friendly or trustworthy to the sixteen year old. 

Andy pointedly avoided the woman's gaze and addressed his parents instead. "You said we'd be meeting John and Lorna here?"

His father Reed nodded casually. "Yeah, they said that there was a matter to attend to downtown. I'm sure they'll swing by shortly."

"Well, it's been good seeing you," Whedon courteously told the Struckers before taking her leave.

When Whedon left, Reed cast his son a reproachful look, to which Andy just shrugged. It was Caitlin who broke the tense silence. "How was school?"

"Okay," grunted Andy. He really did not appreciate being dragged here and could not summon the enthusiasm for the appointment.

"Oh look," Lauren pipped up as she looked toward the lobby's entrance, "they're here!"

John Proudstar, Clarice Fong, Marcos Diaz and Lorna Dane, all smartly dressed business suits, entered the CSS head office. They all warmly greeted the Struckers, though Andy hung back nervously.

Lorna stepped toward the boy and held him in a deep embrace which Andy gingerly reciprocated."What have you been up to, kid?" She asked in a voice full of warmth and reproof at the same time. "I keep leaving you texts. How have you been?"

"Um..this and that?" Andy stammered awkwardly. He did not look up, but he heard indulgent chuckles all around him. Andy forced a smile as he held Lorna. He felt everyone's gaze on him but would not look at them in return.

Everyone went to the cafeteria to catch up with each other's lives.

"It's a lot of work," John told the Struckers over drinks in the cafeteria, "rebuilding everything we had. But I think we can say that we've come back stronger than we've ever been. I never imagined I'd be working from some fancy corporate office. You never know when life does you a big favour like that."

"I'm not sure I'd call it a favour," John's partner Clarice told them. "Hours are long. We don't have time to go out anymore. This is the closest we get to that now."

"Yeah, we get swamped here." Marcos added. "Whedon is on our case everyday. I miss the outdoors."

"You miss having bullets whizzing by your heads?" Reed quipped.

Marcos grinned. "Just about, man! I feel like I'm dying a slow death, here."

Lorna smiled as she patted Marcos on the arm. "Big baby!" The green-haired woman mocked her boyfriend. Marcos responded by fake crying.

"Speaking of babies," Lauren cut in, "how's little Dawn doing?"

"She's great," Marcos said with fondness in his voice. "Noisy, messy, stinky. Takes after her mother!"Lorna scowled, thumped Marcos on the arm. Everyone laughed.

Andy, sitting between Reed and Lauren, remained detached from the conversation before excusing himself to go to the bathroom. He was followed a moment later by his father. Reed stood at the doorway, his arms folded as he gazed at his son, who washed his hands in subdued silence.

Reed sighed. "Is everything alright?" He asked Andy in earnest.

"Apparently not, you just followed me to the bathroom. People will talk."

Reed rolled his eyes at his son's smart alec comment. "Andy..I didn't want to make you uncomfortable. But you can't keep isolating yourself like this. What happened, happened!"

Andy put his hands beneath the dryer. He did not look at his father. Reed persisted. His tone hardening. "You need to let it go, son!"

"Oh sure, Dad!" Andy hissed bitterly. "I'll just go back in there, pretend I'm happy and that I didn't cause people's deaths and..."

Reed cut his son short by grabbing his shoulders. "Let it go!" He pleaded. "Everyone of us forgives you. We forgave Lorna. Everyone who came back has been forgiven. Why should you see yourself any differently?"

"D'you really need to ask that?" Andy demanded of his father, his voice close to cracking.

Reed placed his hands tenderly on Andy's face. "And you saved a lot of people, too, before it got worse. Please, Andy, just..just give yourself a chance. Okay? And give them a chance, too!" He waved his hand toward the doorway. "We won't put you on the spot or ask probing questions. They're just concerned about you. You matter to them more than you'll ever know!"

Andy sighed and nodded wordlessly. Smiling gently, his father pressed his forehead lovingly against his son's.

Father and son rejoined the lunch meeting at the cafeteria.

\------

The Struckers returned to their apartment building a couple of hours later. Andy lay on his bed doing his physics homework on his laptop, while listening to The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult through earphones. The bedroom door. 

"It's open!" Andy replied.

Caitlin entered her son's room. "I'm not disturbing, am I?"

Andy removed his earphones. "No, not really."

"You got a minute?" Caitlin asked.

"Is this about California?"

His mother smiled. "Lauren told you, huh?" 

Andy made space on the bed for Caitlin to join him. She held her son's hand. "You're father and I discussed this, and the Underground chapter in Los Angeles needs experienced medical staff, and I thought that with everything secure here that we might move, as a family, and make ourselves a fresh start."

Andy looked to his mother with a resigned expression. "Okay! You should take it."

Caitlin cocked her head. "Are you sure? We'd be moving far away from the people we know." 

Andy gave a small smile. "That's what Skype is for."

Caitlin giggled. She ran a caressing hand over her son's hair. "Well, I hope you'll be doing that again..."She paused. "Actually, come to think of it, I don't think you've done that ever."

Andy laughed. "Dammit! Foiled again." He declared in a playful, mocking voice.

Caitlin looked fondly at her son. "You have to connect with people more, Andy. Carrying a burden like that, it..", she sighed, "it's unfair to you. You don't need it! You deserve happiness. Don't try to hide yourself from it. From other people! I think Lorna would want to see you again. Before we move again.

Andy took a breath as he lay on the bed, eyes scanning the ceiling. "Do you really think she'd have time for me?"

"She will!" Caitlin replied firmly. 

"So when are we leaving?"

"In just over a month from now," his mother stated. "The Underground needs to negotiate the purchase of the building and they're still looking for more staff at the moment. They already have a lot of people here as it is."

Andy propped himself up on his elbows. "Are we looking for a house there, or an apartment? I read that property prices in California are pretty high."

Caitlin smiled. "We're okay for it." She leaned down to kiss Andy's head. "I hope you'll like it there."


	3. Chapter 3

Andy just finished his classes at the technical college for the day. He waited outside the building for his father Reed to arrive with the car. He looked at his contacts on his phone and clicked on Lorna's name to send her a text message. 

The boy thought a little about how to phrase his message. "Can we talk?" Andy finally settled on.

Lorna's reply came within thirty seconds. "Sure", she responded.

Andy typed "Your place?"

"I'm at home", came Lorna's next text.

Reed finally arrived and Andy stepped inside the sedan. 

"Oh Dad, uhm, can we swing by Lorna's place? I just told her I was coming."

"Sure," Reed replied. "What d'you need to talk about, though?"

"Just stuff between us." Andy stated vaguely.

"Right!" His father said quietly. "Would it be about us moving?"

Andy exhaled. "I thought about what you said, okay? You and Mom. It's just overdue between us."

"So, this is about the Inner Circle?"

Andy sighed. "Yes Dad, this is about the Inner Circle."

"Just that, you know, you've never really spoke about it since we got you back." Reed was curious.  
"You seem to avoid the subject around us."

His son leaned his face in the crook of his arm. "We were wrong about what the Inner Circle was, okay! I STILL do think we all need our own homeland. I knew what it would mean going to war. I didn't know, however, what Reeva was really doing with the Purifiers. I didn't know about the sort of people we were breaking out of jail. I assumed most of them were innocent."

"Well," Reed gently cut in, "to be fair, plenty are. I was a district attorney, so I'm not exactly proud about my part in some people's imprisonment. It's just...people get misled and deceived all the time. We were all worried about you when you were with that group." 

Reed paused as he stopped in traffic.  
"We know that you joined the Hellfire Club because you wanted to protect us, son. We know how dire it is for all of us in the world. But you're our boy! We're not too happy about you or Lauren being child soldiers for the Underground, never mind anyone else. Regardless of how formdibal you are. You guys have so many other gifts than just your mutant ability," Reed placed a gentle hand on his son's arm, "even if you insist on denying your own." He told his son meaningfully. 

An opening appeared on the road and Reed resumed driving. "You're doing brilliantly with your classes. Far better than even I would have thought. I always knew you could excell with the right motivation." Reed glanced at his son. "I've always been proud of you, and that's the God's honest truth, Andy. You hear me?!"

Andy nodded. His face, though, as ever it did to Reed's eyes, looked sad and troubled.

Reed turned his eyes back to the road. "You need to have more faith in yourself, Andy." He told the boy. "My father would tell me to focus on my plan. On schoolwork. Life! You've proved to me that, despite all that upheaval, that you can achieve that and more." Reed smiled fondly at Andy. "So you can take it from me that you're much better than you think you."

Andy blushed and shifted awkwardly in his seat. "You just need to believe it!" Reed insisted.

Andy bite his lower lip, trying in vain to conceal how moved he was by his father's talk. "So, umm, any update on that move to California?" The boy asked to change the subject.

"I only know as much as you do about it." Reed replied.

"I don't suppose you'll open a legal practice over there?" 

Reed looked at Andy with some, thinking his son was mad, only to see a mirthful smirk on his son's face. "Very funny!" He grinned.

They arrived outside of the apartment building where Marcos and Lorna resided.

"Do you want me to wait here?" Reed asked his son.

Andy shook his head. "I don't know how long I'll be. I might take the bus home."

Reed drove off after Andy left the vehicle and headed inside the building. He clicked on the intercom to tell Lorna he was here. Andy took the stairwell to the fourth floor. 

Lorna grinned when she saw Andy in her doorway. She pulled the younger mutant in an embrace. "You've finally decided to show your face here?" 

Andy gave wan smile in return to the green-haired woman's affections. "I'm sorry I took so long."

Lorna shut the door behind and led Andy by the hand into the room, where her baby daughter Dawn Dane-Diaz lay inside her rocker. Andy leaned down and affectionately stroked his fingers over the child's face.

"How's Triple-D doing?"

Lorna pouted. "She's fine, and stop calling her 'Triple-D', she's not a battery."

Andy grinned. "Mark my words, she's gonna get that nickname one way or another."

Lorna sighed. "I should have just called Aurora."

"Then she'd be called A-D-D, would that sound any better?"

Lorna fought hard not to laugh. "Enough!" She then gestured for Andy to sit down on the sofa beside her. "You said you wanted to talk about stuff?"

Andy's mood turned sombre. He struggled to find the words he needed. "We haven't talked about the Inner Circle, Reeva and the rest. I've been coping with my own stuff since then, and I wasn't thinking about how it would have affected you..."

"I'm okay Andy!" Lorna said, cutting the boy off in mid-sentence. "I reconnected with Marcos after Reeva started recruiting those killers from prison. Frankly, I was worried about you. I couldn't risk telling you about what I was doing."

Andy held Dawn's tiny hand in his, her innocent eyes looking up at the boy. "The Frosts talked me into letting them monitor my dreams with Lauren." He sighed. "Gave me this whole song and dance about protecting my family from Sentinel Services. Lied that they wanted Lauren safe when they really wanted both of us for Fenris." Andy leaned back on the couch. 

Lorna lay a thin hand on Andy's arm "I'm really sorry I couldn't let you be clued in with what was happening. Esme knew we were talking, and told me that I was either with or against Reeva."  
She tucked her feet up on the couch. "They sent those psychopaths after the Underground's leadership and decimated most of them. We were treading on thin ice as it was...."

Lorna and Andy talked some for about an hour. Soon, Andy left the apartment and took a walk through streets. He only lived a mile from Lorna's place anyway. 

Since being reunited with his family, Andy had not gone out on his own.Several months of this made him feel like a little kid again, but his parents and Lauren knew he was in a very vulnerable state of mind. Destroying the Inner Circle after learning of Reeva and the Frost's manipulations and lies, Andy's faith was shattered and was on the brink of suicide. He felt cheated of his very purpose in life. His dream of living out in the open was wasted and the realisation of the lives destroyed in pursuit of it consumed Andy with guilt and sent him into a deep depression. Even now, Andy found every day a hard one to live  
with himself.

Andy walked into a Walmart store. He did not initially intend to buy anything, but a vague sense guided him inside. Wandering through the aisles, Andy looked about the shelves to find something he needed. Was there something he really wanted, he thought to himself. Or perhaps the reason why he was in here was...

"Oh, Andy! Hey." Lauren's voice came from behind him.

Andy swivelled around to see both his sister and mother standing their with a trolley between them.

"Hi." The boy said awkwardly. "I just came here for..." He tried to think of a reason, but nothing came to mind.He waved a shakey hand at the shelves. "I don't know, I thought there was something."

Caitlin managed a gentle smile. "We could use an extra pair of hands, if you're not too busy."

Andy's head tilted to the side as if mulling it over. "Yeah, okay," he replied in a soft, distant tone.

The three carried out their shopping before returning to Caitlin's Honda. Andy sat in the backseat. Caitlin peaked at her son in the rearview mirror to check on him. 

"So, Andy, your Dad mentioned you met with Lorna today.

The boy gazed out the window. "Yeah, we had something to talk about."

Caitlin sensed that her son was not going to expand on the what was said between him and Lorna so changed the topic. "You know what we haven't done in forever? Been to a movie!"

"Okay," Lauren offered. "So what are we seeing? When we're going?"

"I don't know, but we'll drop these off at the apartment and then go see what they're showing. Sound good?"

"Mmm-hmm," Lauren replied. 

"Andy?" The boy looked to be miles away. "Andy?!" Caitlin persisted.

"Yeah?" Andy broke off from his reverie. 

"We're seeing a movie. Wanna come?"

"Uh, sure! Whatever." Andy said in a faint, distant voice.

Caitlin and Lauren exchanged sad and concerned glances.

Later, the Struckers had arrived at the cinema and paid for their tickets. Andy was seat between his mother and sister. He had no interest in what the movie was. He had attempted to walk about in public on his own, but his instincts, plus months of insular living arrangements, had just took him back to his family. His brain had sensed Lauren's presence in the Walmart, and Andy had been drawn to her like a magnet. Did Lauren sense him too, he wondered.

Andy and Lauren's eyed met very briefly. She gave her younger brother a gentle, knowing smile. Of course she knew! 

But he asked her anyway. "You knew I was at the store?!"

"Yeah," replied Lauren. "I felt your presence, and me and Mom started looking for you." She glanced at her brother.  
"Did you know I was in there?"

"I dunno," said Andy. "I think I did. I think I'm too cloistered."

"We're not trying to do that to you," Caitlin told him.

"I know," he whispered back. 

"We just don't want to lose you again."

"I know," her son told Caitlin again. "It's just that....I don't know what to do with myself. Like, everything I do goes south somehow. What if I hurt someone again...?" Andy's voice started to sounded panicked and rushed. Caitlin and Lauren both lay calming hands on him.

"Andy, there no hurry to do anything," Lauren told. 

"We're here for you," Caitlin smiled reassuringly. "You don't need to prove anything to us." 

"Really?!" Andy murmured, his voice was bitter. "Anyone who did what I did would be in prison."

Caitlin clutched Andy's arm. "Andy, please, don't talk like that." She hissed pleadingly. 

The curtains rolled back and the trailers before the movie started.

\--------

Silvery-white discs arced through the gymnasium. One after the other, they were hit and dissipated by rapidfire  
shock waves.

"Pick up the pace, Andy! I don't want to bloody your nose again." Lauren taunted.

"You'll bloody your own nose, too." Andy shot back.

"It was worth it."

"Knocking me out in a dream isn't the same as knocking you out in real life, just thought you should know that."

Lauren scowled as she smarted from her brother's retort. "At least we're even." She snapped. "Now stay focused!" 

The siblings continued a while before quitting their subconscious training exercises and returning to one of their  
other memories.

"Why do we keep coming back here?" Andy asked.

"What..at Chuck E. Cheese?" Lauren said. "Isn't it a happy memory for you?"

Andy shrugged. "Maybe? I got happier memories, though."

"Well, tough! I called this dream, so I'm calling the itinerary."

"Does the itinerary include Venice Beach?"

"It may if you be good and stop questioning your wonderful big sis."

"Heh-heh, 'wonderful'!" Andy sneered.

Lauren scowled at her brother. "I wanted to talk to you about today." She told Andy civilly. After you got back from Lorna's place, you were rather mopey. More than usual. What happened?"

"Nothing," said Andy. "Just talked about what happened at the Inner Circle. Why we did what we did there."

"And nothing else?" Lauren pressed.#

"No!" Andy said firmly.

"Did you....talk about Rebecca Hoover?"

Andy's eyes shot for a second, giving his older sibling a stare of mixed pain and anger.

Lauren gulped. "I'm sorry...it's just that you never talk about her."

"Should I?"

"I know you were in love with her. Lorna told me. Sage told me."

"Well, then there's nothing more I can tell you." Andy sullenly declared.

Lauren left her seat and sat next to Andy on the padded bench. "I want you to tell me," she asked him gently. "I need to hear it from you. Please!"

Andy took a breath. "You know she was at that Linwood nuthouse for mutants. You caught us as we were taking herout of there, then we had the fracas..."

"Yeah..." Lauren nodded, her tone soft and forgiving.

"I'm sorry," Andy looked close to tears. 

Lauren lovingly placed her head next to his. "Shh..."

Andy regained his composure. "She was withdrawn, not communicating. The Frosts were calling her a 'weapon', as if they knew she had no humanity from the start..." The boy took a shallow breath. "They must...must've known about her full history before we bust her out." He paused. Andy took a breath. "It pissed me off, hearing them talk about Rebecca like she was a thing to be used. I talked with Rebecca, got her to open up. Took a few days. She had been locked up for a year and wanted to see the sky, be in the open. So, I took her out for a meal."

Lauren gave her brother a warm smile and rubbed his hand. Andy gave one of his rare, shy smiles.

"Rebecca already show me her powers, then she got, you know, adventurous when she saw a squad car nearby."  
Lauren then looked concerned.

"We hid behind a dumpster. She turned their car inside, despite my warning not to. The outing was supposed to be impromptu, and there were riots happening because of us. She dared me to show her my powers. It was a stupid thing to do on one hand, and yet, I figured that the cops investigating a malformed, inside-out vehicle would raise some suspicions by itself anyway. And so I shredded the car. The cops saw the destruction of their car, but not us. We split and got back to HQ."

Andy leaned his head back. "What happened after?" Lauren asked her brother quietly. 

"We trained for weeks. Things pertaining to missions and targets were always on a need-to-know basis with Reeva in charge. Me and Lorna would usually get told what we needed to do a couple of days before we did it. Lorna even took issue about with Reeva. Got in her face at one point. She was thinking of her baby and the dangers we'd be facing out there. Me and Rebecca though...." Andy smiled sadly. We were living in a dream. Stuff just mattered less when I was with her. She was beautiful sweet, fun - and funny!" Andy's smile then dropped.

Lauren's eyes glistened a little. "And?" Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"And I should have picked up on the signs. The things she's say. Like once, after we had a briefing on the Creed Financial vault, she said something about killing the people there." Andy groaned. "It sounded to me like one of her off-colour jokes, so we both laughed it off. A day later, we hit the bank. One of the people there - the manager, I think, was saying the usual shit about mutants. Just running his mouth. Rebecca took it to heart and the next thing was she was talking about killing them. Saying that they were 'only humans'. I told her that our Mom was a human. She said that 'so was mine'." Andy shook his head sadly. "I couldn't credit my hearing, so I chalked it up to her being annoyed with that Creed prick back in the office. I mean, I was pissed too. But there were bigger things at hand. We got to that when Rebecca did her trick with the vault. We got the data we needed - what Reeva needed. Then we had to leave, as the police had been alerted. Rebecca was still..." Andy paused again, "still chomping at the bit about killing. Reeva told her to pipe down." The boy sighed and took a breath. "So, we were about to leave, and...." 

Then, Andy closed his eyes. Opening them, tears sprang forth. Andy took small, shallow breaths. Lauren held her little brother in her arms. The boy trembled slightly. He fought to control himself. Around the siblings, what was initially the interior of a Chuck E. Cheese diner, resembled a dark, featureless chamber. With the furniture now absent, Lauren and Andy were slumped on the hard ground.

"Rebecca killed everyone in that room. They were locked in there with no escape." Another pause. Andy's face slumped down. "I didn't know how to react. I thought...thought she must have been fucked up from what was done to her at Linwood. I didn't WANT to believe she was capable of that. We got out." Andy turned his face to Lauren. "Her, me and Lorna in the car. Lorna was going off it with Rebecca. Rebecca complained that she might as well leave, because was a 'crowbar' to them. Which she was, let's be honest. She bailed out as we were still escaping." 

Lauren hugged her brother to her breast. She was crying herself, saying the pain Andy was living with. 

"How did...hmm" she awkwardly tried to rephrase, "...what happened after?"

Andy gave a deep sigh. "Fade found her after a couple of days search. Brought Rebecca back to HQ and kept her in this...this..." Andy's face contorted in disgust and shame. "This fucking contraption which made it hard for her to escape. Rebecca was screaming, crying. Humans kept her in confinement night and day for a year, and here we were! The Inner fucking Circle: Liberators of Mutantkind, and we were doing the same thing to her!" Andy sobbed.

Lauren was sobbing herself. Even if not for her telepathic bond with her brother, this would have affected her as much as it did now. She felt the deep, pulsating wound on Andy's heart, as if his pain was hers: it WAS her pain. She bore his burden with him. 

"Sage, Frosts and Reeva tried to explain it to me. But I didn't want to listen. Reeva gave me this speech - she LOVED giving these fucking new era speeches. Said, in a nutshell, that I was too young and would understand one day. I packed some clothes, snuck to the training area, where Rebecca was held in that hideous thing, and broke her out of there. I was ready to abandon the Inner Circle for Rebecca. I wasn't sure where we were gonna go. I didn't if I could go back after what happened between us. Didn't care. I still thought I could help Rebecca. I wanted to believe it that she could be saved. We got in the elevator. I wanted to leave NOW! But Rebecca wanted to go to the office and kill everyone there." Andy stopped to catch his breath. "I defended her to everyone. And here, the girl that I fell for, was talking about killing them like...I don't know...like she was stopping by the store to get credit on her phone. It was so matter-of-fact. I was scared of what was coming. Everything she said to me in that lift was like hearing what everyone was saying about her being echoed through her mouth. I asked her to stop. She threatened me. Me! The only person in that goddamn place who had her back."

"What happened then." Lauren whispered tearfully. 

Andy swallowed hard. "The doors opened. Rebecca stepped out and those weird reality-warping bubbles appeared over everyone's heads. Reeva, Frosts, Sage and Lorna were all there. It felt like the world was speeding up." Andy went quiet. "I....I had to stop her. Threw up my hand..." Andy bared his teeth and shook. "She flew across the corridor and her neck broke against the post!" He was sobbing breathlessly. Lauren clutched him tightly. 

"Should we have broke her out?" Andy started shouting out loud. An edge of insanity and grief creeping in his voice which brought fresh distress to Lauren as she listened. "Was she ever sane? Why do I still have these stupid fucking feelings for her? Was she worth all that devastation, those deaths?" Andy was shouting at himself. "Are you fucking stupid? Stupid?! Stupid?!" The boy started to violently smash his own head against the hard floor.

"Andy, Andy, no!" Lauren struggled to calm her brother, her own voice thick with sobbing. "Shh...you're not! You're not! Never!" The blonde girl growled fiercely. She stroked Andy's hair. "Let it go!" She whispered. "Just let it go." She nuzzled her tear-stained face into his.

Andy, sobbing and trembling, surrendered himself to his sister's embrace. He wanted to end his deep hurt. Lauren wanted nothing less than to help him do that. 

Their love for each other was a flame light in the cold darkness that engulfed them. They each needed the other's strength. The siblings fed off one another, as they ever had. When they help each other. When they fought and argued. Whether they ever realised it or not, Lauren fed off Andy as Andy fed off Lauren. In the deep recesses of their brains, both now clutched upon this epiphany. The bright light which pervaded their beings now shone through their skin and pushed away the darkness of their pain.

Lauren and Andy found themselves in a realm of hot flame which replaced the darkness. The siblings stared in  
wonderment. They had stood in those same glorious flames during their waking moments. The flames were warm and safe to them. They were alive, swirling above them playfully and fondly. It loved them like a mother rearing its cubs. A savage love. A force of nature, but nature with a clear spirit and intent borne by its own children of the von Strucker bloodline.

Lauren and Andy felt their sorrow and regret melt from their souls like ice thawing in the spring. They were frightened and alone, but now they unafraid and....interchangeable; seeing themselves through each other's eyes. Seeing each other with perfect clarity and understanding. And yet, for all that, their past transgressions; regrets and sorrows were as fine dust blowing in the wind. All the pain in their hearts burned away and replaced with pure, childlike innocence. 

The siblings, holding hands like little children, stood and basked in the warmth of the flames. Nothing could touch them inside the fiery maelstrom.

For Lauren and Andy stood inside the very burning heart of Fenris itself.


End file.
